1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an electronic component mounting apparatus having a plurality of component feeding units aligned on a feeder base, the component feeding unit feeding an electronic component stored in a storage tape to a component pickup position, in which a suction nozzle picks the electronic component fed by the component feeding unit and mounts the electronic component on a printed board.
2. Description of the Related Art
In this kind of electronic component mounting apparatus, particularly in a high-speed gantry-type mounting device, since the component feeding units are fixed and not moved, there are rapidly increasing users employing the so-called splicing where storage tapes are connected to each other for supplying the components during automatic driving. A method of connecting storage tapes to each other is described in the Japanese patent application publication No. hei 5-338618 and so on, for example, and a technology of facilitating the connection work is proposed.
However, when the number of remaining electronic components becomes small and a storage tape in use and a new storage tape are connected to each other with a connection tape in the component feeding unit, the connection tape may cause shifting of a position where the suction nozzle should descend and pick up the electronic component at the component feeding unit and cause a component pickup error to reduce a pickup rate. Other causes than this may also provide the same effect.